(upbeat music) - What's up everybody, welcome to IJ in Game Scoop. I'm your host, Damon Hadfield, and joining me this week are Sam Clayborn. - Hey, it's good to be here. - And Mark Medina. - Feels great to say, I'm here, Damon. - The one guy that keeps him saying, I'm so happy Mike isn't here, is gonna be either disappointed or confused. (laughing) - Well, it's good to have you back, Mark. I feel like it's been a while. - Yeah, it has been a while. Feels good to be back. - Okay, well we've got a great show for you this week. - It's an all, it's a mail bag episode. We're doing all ListerMail episode, 'cause it's a little bit quiet. It's the calm before Gamescom. Gamescom, a lot of the teams already there in the UK, Justin is flying out tonight. Sam and I are flying out later this week, so we'll be covering Gamescom all next week, and it looks like it's gonna be a pretty big show this year. We know Xbox is gonna be like-- - Yeah, it's not calm, is it? It looks kinda happy. - The show is gonna be big. Xbox is there and Nintendo is there. We know we're gonna see games like Alien Isolation to Gears of War E Day, Fable, Persona 4 Revival, and The Witcher 3 Expansion is gonna be unveiled there. Which is, I forget, do you guys ever remember the name of the expansion? - I don't remember what it is. - It should just be Witcher 4, but it's something else. - Yeah, that's not what you're for. - It's a song about wind. - It's a song. - It's something. - It's a song, something, something like that. - Yeah, yeah. - It's from. - Anyway, it should be lots of good games to check out next week. But first, let's check in with the listeners. - Hey, did you write us? - Hey. - Did me? - That was the listeners, the managers, did you write us? - Look, David's the listener. - Someone has to say it. - Hey listeners. - Thank you, thank you Mark. Thank you. - Just like, big Tony's style. (all laughing) - Well viewers, listeners, if you have your own questions for us, you can always reach me out the email address
[email protected], just like Carlos Ortiz did, who says, "I know there was a lot of excitement surrounding GTA VI." In recent episodes, there has been significant discussion regarding "Game of the Year" so far, with several mentions that GTA VI has yet to be released. While I'm looking forward to the game, I'm not entirely over the moon as it may simply offer a larger story in open world with more freedom than previous entries. So my question to you is, what could GTA VI do to disappoint you or kill your excitement? Is there anything specific that would disqualify it as a "Game of the Year" contender for you? - We're going to get a nice long look at this next week. This is another game we're going to see next week. It's not a game. - I think we all need to reserve judgment for so many races, but one is that we're going to see so much of this next week. It's crazy. And so, you know, like I just think what I have seen over the years is an evolution from GTA to Red Dead 2. And like the more Red Dead 2, this game will be, that's my favorite rock star game. And the more I will be into it. - Yeah, I mean, it's hard to speak without seeing gameplay, which is super exciting. We're getting that in a week. So I presume of like, you know, whatever they're going to show us from the Netflix. - It's supposed to be a deep dive. - I don't know. Yeah, yeah. I think with Rockstar, it's kind of one of those things where it's like, you know, I feel like they've earned a little bit to be able to be like, you know, like their game might be a "Game of the Year" contender. I don't think that's outrageous based off their track record to assume that GTA 6 might be a game of the year contender? Like that's logically speaking. - Oh, yeah, these series are very, very good games. - Yeah, it's like the Zelda series. Like the Zelda series is, you get this kind of repeated, you know, beloved high ranked, high rated games. And then even if you don't like one of those off years, it turns out it's someone's favorite game of all time. That keeps happening with Zelda. It's like, it's like, you know, people would be like, well, actually my favorite is Zelda's Skyward Sword. Like I think that's insane. But I also remember the year that that game came out. And I probably would have voted for a game of the year. I don't know why. - I mean, she was something crazy. Tears of the Kingdom of the recent ones are my favorite, but Echo's a wisdom is probably my second favorite. - Yeah, and that's a relief. - Above Breath of the Wild. I love that game, that game's great. So I would say off track record alone, I think it's worth keeping GTA 6 on the radar as far as game of the year contenders. But I mean, maybe it comes out in some mess, who knows? - Probably won't be a mess. - I don't know, you do see a lot of, there's talk, people seem to think it's a foregone conclusion that this will be a game of the year. Given how anticipated it is, I'll say something that will be unpopular, but then I think I'll get everyone on my side again after that. So the first thing is, I am not a fan of GTA V. I don't care for that game. I played it when it came out. I have no good memories of playing it and I have no desire to ever play it again. However, like Sam was saying, the story in Red Dead Redemption 2 is really remarkable. One of the best stories I've ever experienced in a game and my favorite GTA of all time is Vice City. So those two things combined do have me excited for GTA 6. - Right, right, right, yeah. - Yeah, GTA V story is very silly. So, you know, all the characters have such weird motivations, but I do love that game, so. - You know, I'm excited to see. It's just in terms of like what happens with Game of the Year here and how that all works. One interesting thing is that like a game that's this big also has just by its nature creates underdogs. And we are this very show, Champion Underdogs a lot, right? And so there's always going to be people voting in Game of the Year Championships, or Championships, what do we call it? I don't know. It's that might want an underdog to win, and that totally happens some years. So, you know, it's just a matter of like, if you're the big fish, you know, everybody has their eye on you, which is a mixed metaphor. - Yeah, I mean, GTA 6 might be Game of the Year unless Slay the Spire 2 comes out in 1.0. Then it's over. - Is Slay the Spire 2 not 1.0? - No, it's really X's. - No, so it's really X's. - And it has a lot of placeholder art. - It's just like, every Friday, yeah, every Friday, they do like a little update. Like one of those images gets replaced, but now it's not out. Yeah, great game. - Well, we'll see you love GTA 6 next week. We're going to be doing a Game Scoop from Gamescom, but it won't be your typical Game Scoop. You know, we have these big live events. We kind of have to like conform to the live showness of it all and throw in some, you know, ad breaks and that sort of thing. So it'll be a little bit truncated. Won't be a usual episode. So that's, that's all just to say that our GTA discussion will probably be in two weeks when we're back from Gamescom. (upbeat music) - Wolverine. - But speaking of Game of the Year, this is Mav from Oregon, who says with Marvel Tocon out, it's my new Game of the Year. I adored Resident Evil 9, enjoyed Pocopia, put countless hours into four to six. And up until now, Pragmatta was my favorite Game of the Year. What a year for Games. But Marvel Tocon surprised me. I'm not usually very interested in fighting games, but I can't put it down. This leads me to my question, do fighting games have a chance at Game of the Year? And how do you decide Game of the Year? If a popular game is as genre, most of the IGM team aren't into or more niche, like some fighting games are. It's funny because once upon a time, fighting games were the most popular games. - Yeah. - And they absolutely won Game of the Year. Well, it was going to stay Street Fighter II in Mortal Kombat. - And Smash Brothers, right? That is what's going to get you a nomination for Game of the Year. Easily is when you put, this is what always happened with our racing challenge game. - Yeah, we gave a racing game game of the year in 2021. - Yeah, totally. But people used to get really mad on our team. They were like, if we put a racing award together, people just vote for Mario Kart in a Mario Kart year. - Yeah, but that's what happens with Smash Brothers, right? - There aren't very many Mario Kart use, but sure, yeah. - There should be, but there aren't. Yeah, no, I mean, I completely get the cultural moment for fighting games hasn't come around in a while, but for that level, like the Street Fighter II level, but there's a chance every once in a while on like, boy, Mortal Kombat is really popular and it really does well when that's out. So people of like those years. - Yeah. - They really love injustice, right? Which is the DC Mortal Kombat. So like with this being, you know, Marvel Street Fighter, like I'm not a fighting game guy and I have this installed on my PS5 'cause I wanna check it out because I love Marvel. I'm not much of a team shooter guy and I played a ton of Marvel rivals. So I'm trying to, I'm gonna try to see if this kind of grabs me in the same way, but IGN has a lot of fighting game fans. So it would not surprise me if this is heavily in the discussion game of the year for us. - Yeah, we actually have grown our staff by only hiring, seemingly, fighting game players. For instance, it's like, seriously, like we used to have so much trouble just being like, oh, who's gonna represent for fighting games, you know, in this argument about game of the year. And now it's just like the fighting game staff has just taken over. It's great. It's a good time to be a fighting game fan. - But why do you think fighting games, while a popular genre, they're just, they are a little more niche. Is it because it's a really skill, like you have to play at a competitive level, you have to be very skilled. It's not something you can just sort of pick up and play casually, right? - Yeah, when I look at this game play, like this looks fun. Ray, I want to be able to pick it up, push buttons and do cool stuff as magic, right? But I have watched someone, I'm on a team with two fighting game people and one of the most, you know, celebrated in the game's industries, Mitchell Solzman, he's on my team and he'll make these crazy and deaf vibes.
game videos and they make me never want to play fighting game like they're he's showing like all these like frame counters and like the game knowing like how you know at what button you push the frame and and high punch and bubble bubble and he shows me his fight stick and you you know he reviewed this game and I I just I can't be bothered to do all that so then it kind of just turns me off so that's why my goal is to just boot the game up and just see if I like playing it. That's because like once I get to it once I start watching videos like that it scares me. I have this like desert island fantasy with these games where I'm like you know and it's not really something I want to do but it's something that like I'm curious about like if if I was just going to play this or say a competitive shooter you know as the only game I play and just mainline it and play it for a year which I couldn't do with my job. Would I be what I have fun with it would I be good at it is it something I can even learn you know what I mean without having done it for the last 20 years or whatever because that's how that's what this when I see this I'm like oh this is just it's like it's like riding a bike with not knowing how to ride a bike I don't I don't know how to do that you know and yes I can ride a bike but I can't play a fighting game. Yeah getting hardcore in the rivals and then and then you know kind of seeing the fighting game stuff and and watching Mitchell's videos about it it becomes this like almost poker type thing where you're not playing your character you're playing the other character and that's where it starts to like get a bit too much for me right like learning I remember playing rivals and early on one of the people my group was like I kind of want to turn off voice lines like they're getting really annoying and you and I'm like you can't like you need to know when the other person's doing something that you that is part of the game yeah and that's how these are as well it's like you need to learn how to you need to know how to play penny Parker but you also need to know how to play blade in that situation just going off the b-roll because when blade does X you need to know how to counter with that and like that's where it starts getting it a lot from me because you yeah I have to know it all in mess pack man you control the ghosts you don't let the ghosts control you and that's how you that's how you get a high score miss back man yeah and that's true yeah you can micro trigger those ghosts to do things and go the directions you want to by manipulating them yeah you also don't want to turn off the sound in miss pack man no it's one one song I always like to play the single player modes in mortal combats whenever they come out and I do want to play Marvel Tocon so I need to I need to get a copy of this on my ps5 maf morgan in this is email with uh I would love to hear from each you what's your game of the year so far mine remains Resident Evil 9 at the moment what a game yeah man it's so hard best games of 20 20 you don't even know anymore it's like I just like I just don't even know anymore it's me enough for me no questions no question the holler yeah someone else to wrote in a uh pony out there was a pretty large oversight in your review Sam you never pointed out oh that the bones are their money I did do that joke in the video review in the video review that's one of your chapter I think so yeah I think that's I used it somewhere I might have saved it for game scoop but it's absolutely correct that's the bones are your money in that game yeah you know what I'm gonna go with four to her eyes and six as the definitive one wow but oh man I played so much of that game I love it so much wow but I will say again that stuck with me for a while and I actually kind of want to already replay it would probably be pragmatic great game wow that's great to hear that in conversation two two amazing capcom games and conversations for the game there I mean another another capcom game is out very soon unreal that would be I hate and we don't know when they're mega-man games coming out right it's probably not this year no that hasn't been announced uh play that yeah yeah there's and and man September I keep looking ice like I want to play zero company star was zero company I'm gonna play Blake Dale and Wolverine I'll play stories the so many games there's two stories games coming on yeah I think there's and like there's a good chance that Wolverine will be my game of the air because I think the era of Wolverine that I grew up with that where Wolverine was the biggest comic book character on earth for the first time right when there was a Wolverine mini series and then there was the full series and then the X-Men cartoon like that sequence you know of like the the late 80s to early 90s like looks like it's being encapsulated in this game and like I don't I don't care otherwise but like that really has me after this one um school and then yeah Mark pointed out while we're getting set up that phantom blade zero looks incredible also yeah man it does look so good and then yeah control resonant just went gold and that game looks amazing man there's too many games I know so many games supposed to be getting awkward in a time this year yeah yeah exactly and we I don't know if that'll be eligible for game the year funny you should mention ocarina of time because this next email is from Robert from Quebec City long time listener here Merci Boucou for all the scoops we're all hyped for ocarina of time remake but will it live up to the hype I'm a little worried that this game I have very fond memories of will be hindered by the standards and power of modern gaming consoles for instance I loved gta san Andreas back in the day the map felt almost impossibly huge waking up an angel pie and halfway through the game felt like being in a whole new world now in the remake I can literally see mount chili add from CJ's front porch on Grove Street which is laughable the game feels much if the game feels much smaller than I remember and in general less impactful and significant which I know is normal but somehow this diminishes the game just a little for me will this be the case for ocarina of time a game that's often called the greatest game of all time what do you guys think should we get excited should we lower our expectations go sim I think about this a lot um so I have two things one is like that's the challenge that's the challenge to make this game not feel small for this development team they have to either you know put more things in a geographical zone that's kind of like the original or they have to go really traditional and just and and hope people care still and I have evidence that that might still work because when I go back and play the original record time it's fantastic and so is a banjo kazooie and banjo twoie and mario 64 those are all mario sunshine like that era of game even though it seemed big at the time it seems smaller now it doesn't seem small it it seems lively and I think that's the most important thing you have to capture the magic of what you know the all your your to-do list and what you're doing next and not necessarily like the vistas and the distance mm-hmm though I love those things yeah yeah I I think I think ocarina has two things going for it in my opinion one the open world Hyrule Field is not the thing that I need to be this like grand thing right it's the you want that for the bottle it is yeah it's the dungeons and I don't remember how to do any of the dungeons so that's all just going to be fresh and new and that's going to be super fun but also starfox came out earlier this year and I was like that barely a remake right like that was just like a new scan on the exact same game with some new cutscenes and I loved it and a lot of people loved it so if that's what we're getting with this I I think I think they're fine I think they're totally fine well correct me if I'm wrong but Nintendo hasn't done like a capcom style remake or a Final Fantasy 7 remake where they just blow the whole the original game up and it's bigger than it was right because they've remade uh Mario versus Donkey Kong and uh paper Mario thousand year door but they're pretty just like one-to-one remakes right I mean they've remade ocarina of time with 3ds and it was still basically one-to-one yeah yeah so I just said I just don't I don't know what to expect if they blow the game up and make it you know add a bunch of new stuff to it I just think that would maybe be the first time that Nintendo has done that yeah or well I mean if okay so we've seen Nintendo level up something before because they took a black and white gambling game and made it into a 3d game and and that is like an order of magnitude of like graphical blow up but they kept all the puzzles and the geography is of pretty similar uh not exact but similar and so I think that's an interesting thing to think about like what would that be what what's and I don't think I mean obviously that this has been remade once for 3ds so they didn't quite do that there they just kind of gave it extra polygons so you know what would that look like it could be stretched a little bit and filled in a little bit too I think I would have been worried when when there's those initial rumors that it was going to be ocarina of time part one and it was going to be kid link and then later demeline we would get part two but it seems like that that is not the case yeah those games are so tiny on their own that would not that's funny well it's a funny because they did it with final fantasy and I think that was the thought right is like they're going to eight kids links what while it's what it's like three dungeons like they can make it into this whole thing but I'm very glad they didn't because yeah but honestly seven should be actually a warning to companies thinking about doing I mean final fantasy is by its nature a storytelling talky game like that's what it was it was a CD-ROM game about FNV
and talking, like that's just what it had going for it. This, the, Macarena was never that. It was like, how fast can we get you back to running around this field and stabbing stuff? Like the, you know, the longest cutscenes are things like getting the Ocarina, you know, and they're very short in game engine scenes. So, here's a thought experiment for everybody, for homework, for the listeners. What is the castle town to get it look like? Because that was a fixed camera, it felt crazy populated now. That seems really dated now as a pre-rendered, just matte background, right? And then like kind of the polygons placed throughout it. Like doing that now seems really weird. And, you know, to get away with that, you would just have the fixed camera in a full 3D environment. Yes, that might be the way they do it. Or they might just build out a more interesting castle town, you know, like those are both options. I can't wait, like that's what I'm most curious about. - Yeah, I want to see more of it. - Well, that's another point I want to make. - I think Nintendo's being strangely quiet about this. Like, this should be out in three months, but there's no marketing campaign happening for it. There's just that one, the teaser trailer. Yeah, I think it's a little strange that they're being so quiet about this remake of, like our friend in Quebec City said, well, something that is often considered at least one of the greatest games ever made. I can't wait to hear what they're gonna do, the soundtrack, you know, the soundtrack in the original is incredible, but it's not a four orchestra. It's like a midi track triggering minimal, yeah? - It's midi, yeah, that's a really good point. And I know they've orchestrated the stuff in other games since like the themes a little bit and everything, so it'll be nice. But boy, I love the midi and the guitar tone and the grotto desert, it's so cool. - Yeah, maybe that should be like an unlockable easter egg, unlock the original midi track in the remake. That'd be fun. (upbeat music) - Okay, Sam recently went to California Extreme, which is a big retro arcade convention here in California. And you've got some photos and a show and tell. - Yeah, so here's some photos from my vacation in California Extreme. So, California Extreme to remind people, or if you've never heard of this before, it is 700, 800 arcade machines in a high-at-regency in Santa Clara, California. And they're all in free play, you can go for two days and I actually bring games to contribute. And here's the truck that I drove down with friends with a bunch of games strapped to the side of it for safety. You can see there's arcade machines and those things there folded up pinball machines and my friend SmallChange makes those tiny games. So, we loaded those at a loading dock, loaded them inside and had to make sure they were running and stuff like that throughout the weekend, which is less fun than just playing video games all weekend, but still pretty fun. So, what I'm gonna do is gonna show you the experience I had there and talk about it a little bit. But mainly to show you the games, I think Game Scoop fans would be most interested in. So, if you're listening, I'll try to explain what these things are. And I'll move fast, but you might wanna check out this video segment. All right, let's see what we got. Let's do it. - Okay, so this is inside. You can just see this is just a nice setup shot. You can see it into the distance as far as you can see arcade machines, right? And that starts getting closed in with more and more. But you can see this is how they set it all up. It's just this giant two venue halls with all the stuff loaded there. They have volunteers helping you and you loaded up. And that's my last setup video. And now we can go into some of the shots of the games themselves. And I have one that I'm very excited for damage to see. Oh my gosh. Did you see Levi there? - No. - He was there. - That's unbelievable. That's so cool. I saw both there, our tech editor. All right, so caveman is Joe. Joe and Mac, caveman and took a classic game. But as you can see here, somebody used a laser printer in 1991 to make a marquee 'cause this game would have never come out as like a dedicated cabinet, which means like a cabinet with a bunch of art on it. I didn't even know this was for sale. What was I thinking? I should've just blocked this. That's pretty expensive. - Only 15 out of your bucks. - Yeah. - So. - Wait, hold on. Why does it say house of the dead? What the heck? (laughing) - That's what you get when you're swapping over your print shop. So anyway, I love this marquee because this shows you like how people went to lengths to swap out their games. And then you would have the latest game in here Street Fighter. Then you would switch it into caveman Ninja. And then you put it into storage for 40 years. And then it shows up at California Street. This game is so fun. Look this up on Super Nintendo. - It's on Super Nintendo, yeah. - The arcade version's fantastic. - Cool. - All right, Waco. No, you're not drunk. Oh, this is-- - Yeah, okay, go ahead, but I remember this game. - Yeah, this game is not what you think it is either. It's a match to game. So in the next, I think shot is a bit from the side. But yeah, it's a cabinet built on a slant to make it look like it's Waco, that you're drunk walking up to it. It's so funny. - It's like German expression is like-- - I had a friend write me from LA once. He was like, "Hey, there's just a couple of arcade games "in this basement. "I'm sending you picture. "One is really water damage." - It was a Waco. - But yeah, if you can look at the next picture, I think it has a picture of this idea. And you can kind of see, it's just like, "Go home, Waco, you're drunk." But in this game, you just have to show up. It's like a robotron-like. But you shoot aliens, but you have to shoot them in pairs. And they're big, cool monsters. It's like a Godzilla and a Hydra. And then you have to shoot only the Godzilla's. And then, or else, they mix and match the tops and bottoms of the monsters as mutants. It's really cute. - Cool. - And you're a little alien, named Cosmokers, or Tepper. - Classic. I know we've talked about this on the show before. This is a Budweiser branded machine. So Budweiser Tapper, it's a molded cabinet to look like it's all wood grain with a big Budweiser on it. It's Budweiser side art, which you can't see this picture. And two beer holders for your stones. And then a taps, to actual taps, to pour beer with for the controllers. This is, and then, I don't think I have this in my picture, but there's a bar stool rail made out of brass at the bottom of that to say, you know, cool. - How cool is that? - It's amazing. - It doesn't get much cooler than that. Okay, mouse trap. This is a big pink and yellow art package of very 80s art with a dog pulling out of cats tail. In this game, you play as a mouse, and you can hit a dog button. The button in the middle of the game is dog button. You turn into dog. - Cool. - When you hit that button. So it reverses, it's a maze game like Pac-Man, and you're going around trying to avoid these cats and eat the cheese. But then you hit that dog button, and the mouse turns into a dog, and you can chase the cats. But look at that art. It's just of its era. So nice. Oh, you can see the Budweiser Tapper art next to it. - Yeah. - All right, Speed Rumble. This is the one I wanted. Do you know this one? - No. - Oh, you don't. Okay, good. This is the one I want to tell Dana about. So this looks like when you're walking up to you, you're like, okay, kind of a generic catcom racing game. No, it is not. This is a Mad Max game that doesn't have branding. So I never heard of this before, and you can kind of see the car where they've gone on at the top. And the next image I have is just this briefest glimpse of the graphics, 'cause I want you all to go look it up. There's two trucks in here that have backed into each other to block the way, and a bunch of little people are out, and you're in your hot rod with a gun on the front of it, and you can jump out of your car at any time. And when you do it, it's like a bail button. You bail out, you roll before it explodes. - It's like-- - It's a really cool desert punk Mad Max game. All those people with no pox. - Also with a little blaster master in there. - Yeah, yeah. And it's Capcom. Really, really good one. We got to play this one next time in your California extreme. I've never seen that game before my life. - I want the arcade archives people to put that out. - Yeah, so they had the voice actor for Chris Redfield giving a presentation. They did presentations on a few other classic games, and there's a classic game room, and then they have like the creator of Cuber who's been interviewed on the show before a room, and then a bunch of other classic game designers doing presentations. So they had a nice resident evil photo op. This, of course, is the new Jill Valentine cast for this movie and a dog here. Actually, that's my beautiful wife, and we had a really good time with this. - I don't like that you said that's my wife and Jover instantly zoomed in on the dog. - Okay, and that doesn't make it perfect. (laughing) - I love the photo op, it was a really cute thing. And just so you know, there's just a lot of stuff like game festival stuff at this convention. - Oh wait. - All right, this is pretty great. So you saw-- - Oh, Jiller. Whoa! - Amazing! - Yeah, this is a system that you can swap out games in. And the game here is Cheyenne. A nice, awesome Western shooter. And of course, this is a friend of IGN, Scott Bromley playing what was really in there, Jiller. Which is a game about shooting bodies up, making them all bloody and getting points for it. - Yep, what's better? - That's a little-- - Yeah, pretty cool. I like the little distance they have for the game. No reason to have a reflective monitor in that. Except they made a game called Turkey Shoot, which shoots up feathers in front of it, which was here at this convention. - Cool. - I don't think I have that many more. So we're almost at the end here. This is a game I've never seen before. It's a breakout or a pong like, where you move this thing on the bottom back and forth, but it's a curved pong paddle. It's called Clean Sweep. And you are actually cleaning out all the dots in it. And it was part and interesting and looks like a little gambling machine. And I just loved it. Like what a weirdo.
game that no one has ever seen before, or is probably very little documented from some company that I've never heard of before. Super cool. Another company that I've heard of, but is super weird, this is a game. This and Nibbler, where they're biggest games, Nibbler is of course the prototype that became a snake on your cell phones. This game is called Eyes, and you can see that company there. I love this logo, but the company is called Rock Ola. Rock Ola is a jukebox company that got into making these machines right at the last minute. I'm just like, "Oh, can we do this, too?" I bought a bunch of TV vodders and put out some games, but they put out Nibbler. And I saw what was probably a high score champion playing Nibbler for hours at California Exchange, because that type of stuff happens. And she was very good, and I could not believe it was my eyes, because the high score was set three times over. Okay. This is my favorite game that was there. Zookeeper. It's a title game, and I just want to call out if you have a chance to go play Zookeeper in any way, you're kind of running around, keeping animals in a pen, then you're jumping around at kind of Donkey Kong-like level, and it's wonderful. It's just a great game. And it has a lot of magic and character to it, and it's just totally goofy. And it's one of those games you can walk up to, and you're like, "Why wasn't this the biggest game in the world?" Because it's just so fun, and it feels so intuitive, like Pac-Man. Yeah. I think they made a Zookeeper for DS. Yeah, we saw that there's a few future Zookeeper releases that I had never heard it before. There's also Zookeeper World. Okay, that's it. Thank you so much, Joker. I really appreciate it. I have two more show and tellers on camera. Okay. Go ahead. There's Zookeeper World on Apple Arcade, but it's a completely different game. It's like a match-through game. Oh, yeah. What were you playing? Well, it expands the cinematic universe of Zookeeper. Yeah. Okay. So, as I say, there's a console room with a bunch of four-sales stuff, and I bought a bunch of like, you know, frog or puzzles and board games, and just stuff from the '80s. But this is my favorite two things I bought. And I want to show it to the Game of Thrones listeners. Cool. Here's a copy of Mega Man for Docs, it's a PC, Mega Man game. Is that the black and white one? No, it's not black and white, but it has, it's made, it's published by Capcom, but it's made about, you've got to look up the Wikipedia entry for this, because it's made by a single sad boy who made only three robot masters. It's on him. It's on him. Yeah. It's barely playable. That says, "Match your enemies, the mind of Dr. Evil, the evil Dr. Wiley." The back, it says, my favorite thing is the back, it says, "At last, confront Croak, a mega computer revved by the psychotic calculations of Wiley's mad brain, only game with Croak and it everybody." And also, I don't know, that dog wasn't in the first Mega Man game, but here's Russian. That's not the first Mega Man game. It's just something else. What robot masters are in it? Oh, we got Sparkman. It says, "Blow Sonic Man to Splinters, Ouch, Sizzle Voltman and Demolish Dynaman," which seems to be divine. Okay. Is it like, or original robot masters? Yeah. So going from the worst game ever to canonically the best game ever on Game Scoop, I also picked up a really nice copy of the Breath of the Wild, collector's edition, complete. I have a beat up nasty copy of this that I don't know why I didn't store better. This was just a nice upgrade and it came with all this stuff and I thought that was really cool. Cool. It was huge. Yeah. So anyway, go to California Extreme. It's really fun. I'll see you there. I went one time. Back when I still lived in this SF, it was a really, really fun time. Yeah, we played bad dudes together, but we did not save Ronnie. Yeah. Didn't get to get that hamburger. We also played Fire Truck. Okay. Okay. Back to our listeners. This is David Pop, Damon and the Omega Cups. As a longtime listener, thank you for providing a much needed escape during my drives to and from high school. After a long day of principally in Denver, the mental recharge is greatly appreciated. I especially enjoy hearing what everyone is playing as an avid gamer born slightly before Nick. He's got a lot off guard by your picks, but then Damon mentioned Disky at five. And here we are, a hundred hours later. I'm now playing it on both PlayStation and Switch and it's exactly my kind of game, absurd depth without requiring me to relearn a complicated control scheme. Every time work causes an extended gaming drought, thanks for the recommendation. You are welcome, David Pop. And I think I mentioned that after having avoided it for years now, I decided to give Disky 7 a try, even though they went with a blasphemous change in art style. And I'm happy to report that I actually love Disky 7. I'm absolutely in love with it. This is seven here. No, this should be five. Oh, okay. Okay. This is Disky 5. But yes, seven, yes, I would still prefer the 2D sprites, but whatever, it's still the great, it's still the same gameplay, still the charm, the weird quirkiness. It's all in there. It's just an incredibly addictive gameplay loop going from like a story mission to dungeon, grinding in an item world and then, you know, trying to recruit new characters, build out my army. This is Disky 7 here. It also has like an ancient Japan theme to it, even though you're in like a demonic never world. It's great. Love it. So if you like me, we're avoiding Disky 7 for one reason or another. I think if you're a fan of the series, it's gonna, you'll still find it's still the same old Disky, and I really, really love it. Yeah, I can see what you're saying about the art style of the gameplay, but the hand drawn art here looks great. Yeah. Yeah, I love all this hand drawn art. Yeah, it's just, it's these, the 30 models in the game. Yeah. That's all this. That's all. Okay. This is on, I think Sam will be able to help with this. This is Matt from Vienna, esteemed gentleman of the Omega Camp, longtime listener, a few times writer. I've heard the tales, the tales of the fun and glory of the Pikmin games that is. I've decided to investigate myself, but there is yet one problem which Pikmin to pick for a squire like me. Who else but the fabled Courts of the Scoop to help me out and share their Pikmin wisdom every week. I'm so glad to have at least one single game podcast in the realm. You have my thanks and appreciation fairly well. Uh, I don't have an opinion, but I like your letter. Yeah. What's, what's this? What's this? I also have Laura's name. Uh, this is, uh, Matt from Vienna. Uh, well, Matt, Matt and Huzzah. So, uh, I think that you can just skip the Pikmin for it. It's basically a reboot. I think each one just got better. So just just play for it. I think it's just, it's the best one. Wonderful. Although it is nice. I, it can you, I think you can play both one and two of these shop, which is like kind of cool. The game. But those get remade also. So it's like, yeah, before is definitively, I, you know, if it's not the best, it's just so easy to get into and we'll teach you everything about it. It has so many like fun little Nintendo references and stuff and I love the dog as the addition. Yeah. It's great. Yeah. The dog is a great addition that you can write them around. Yeah. I think that, I think each Pikmin got a little bit better and for us the best. It's also just a huge game that would be my recommendation as well. Yeah. And it looks really good too. Yeah. Man. This game was out this year. It would be my game at the year. Okay. We're going to do a little exercise before we get into 20 questions. This is just something I came up with on my commute the other days and I went through it myself. It's, it's going to be tricky, but I went through myself. This is possible. I'm going to put one of you on the spot, but to make it fair, Joe, let's flip a coin. Let's see who's going to participate in our exercise. Here we go. Oh, wait, wait. Sam. Sam, you call it. You call it heads or tails. You call it. Okay. I would like to be tails. Okay. Let's flip. All right, tails it is. This is what you're going to do, Sam. This is a. Wait, wait. I won and I get punished. Yeah. You won the honor to have to do the work. That's how it works. This is, and Sam, this is just one of my dumb ideas. Okay. Yeah. Name a game for every letter of the alphabet that starts with every letter of the alphabet. That's all we're doing. That's it. You don't have one. Well, Mark and I will help you. I think it's just a fun. I was going to say, I can help you. Yeah. I think it's just a fun exercise. Okay. Let's go. Hey. Yeah. Animal crossing. Mm-hmm. That was the one I had. Okay. Oh, you read them off. Balloon fight. Yep. Yep. Mm-hmm. Okay. Um. Um. Um. Crash Bandicoot. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Just guy of five. There you go. Mark's supposed to be helping me or I'm, I'm, I'm a spot. I know. I was, I just thought of it. He's just trying to kiss his boss's ass. That's fine. But the pressure drops off of it. Um. So, um, E. Yeah. Oh, boy. Um. Ever. Um. That's never ever ever. Oh, I got one. Everquest. Yeah. Everquest. Yeah. Everquest. Yeah. Yeah. Um. Oh, come on. Um. Um. Arm bill. Oh, that's where you're going to say that's fine. Final fantasy. I, I will say I think not having the pressure on it. I just, I, I, I, I think you've got there. Just coming to you. I got a, I, I already got one. You already got a G. Oh, yeah. Yeah. All right. Um, just think, think of alliteration. Mm-hmm. Uh. Um, uh, gags. Sure. Yeah. I would have thought ghosts and govers. Sure. Okay. Great. I thought. We talked about it. All right. Uh, H.
Yep. Yeah, I just get worse and worse at it. Oh, no. Hexen? Yep. I thought I thought you had gone for Halo but sure. Yeah, Halo. I went with Hi-Fi Rush. Yeah, I don't know. That was the first thing I bought in my head. That's good. I, this is a little trickier. Yeah. What about like, um, I'm sure there's like an easy or something like that. Um, Indianapolis, you know, Indiana Jones and the. Okay. I know. Arantho. Temple of Atlantis. What's the call matter? I forgot what the game's called. The Great Circle. The Great Circle is the reason. Great Circle. Yeah. J J set radio. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Uh, K. Kangaroo. Yeah. Sorry. Sure. I, killer instinct came to my mind. Yes, K. Kangaroo. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah. L. Let's do. Um, uh, I want to say laser something. Be fun. Liberal Rappl. What? I just thought for sale for extreme. It's a fame. That's a Japanese game. Liberal Rappl. Um, what were you going to go for? Lemmings. Lemmings. That's pretty good. I'll do lost Odyssey. Yeah. Lost Odyssey. Okay. Um, M Metro 20 and whatever. Not Mega Man. Okay. Mega Man. And let's see. Uh, I don't know. There's some like new games. I can only think of a Roblox game. This is why I think of a thing of a magic item. Oh, yeah. Sure. I was going to say. Oh, that's good. I was going to try to lead you to one of my favorite digitized graphics arcade games, which would be NARC. And oh, I can't use a Bolivian because it starts with Elder Scrolls. So oh, um, uh, yeah. I'm out. I'm out of ideas for. Oh, does does that now? Is that something? Out, uh, yeah, you can, you can get rid of that. What about Oxen free? Oxen free. Yeah. Order 1886 was the order. Yeah, that's a good one too. Yeah, that's good. P. This should be doable. Yeah. Yeah. Crack Mata. Yeah. Prince of Persia portal for rapid the wrap up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. That's good. Cute. No game. Start with a cue. Yeah. Probably just skip that one. Yeah, 20, 20 questions because you skipped the two, two, two, zero. And that's a video game now. No, there's got to be cue games. Quicks. Oh, kicks, yeah. Quicks, you worry. Cuber. Cuber. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was popular to cue things at the time. Our, um, Resident Evil. Resident Evil? Yeah. Yeah. S is probably the most common latter, right? So let's go with snake for cell phone because I mentioned it already. T, um, what's what's, what's the easy one for this? Trog for any us? Yeah. Tetris. Tetris. Yeah. Tron. Yeah. Tron. Yeah. Uh, you, um, maybe unreal. Is that the name of it early and real something? Yeah. Unreal tournament. Turn up to us until dawn. Until dawn is good. Yeah. V, uh, V. Yeah. There's a game called V, right? Well, there's a 80s sci-fi show called V. They might have made a game. Maybe that valiant. What's it called? Hearts or salient hearts is a economy. Oh, yeah. Turn based strategy. Great. The, uh, wasn't there an also really old game called just called venture? I know there's adventure. Yeah. Uh, it will. I think so for Atari, right? Yeah. And there's also a company called venture. But yeah, there's a venture for a try. All right. Um, four more W. Okay. Yeah. W. Warcraft. Yep. Yeah. X, there's a game called Zizix. Yeah. I think that's yeah. That might be one of the X-men. Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah. Children of the Adam extreme beats volleyball. Cool. Uh, why you can do. I don't know, uh, Star Wars, the Oda stories. Um, or yo, she's cookie. Yeah, she's, yeah, she's cookie. That's good because it doesn't have Super Mario Brothers in front of it or anything. Um, that's good. And then Z, we can do Zork. Zork one. Oh, yeah. The Underground Empire. We did it. We did it. Zero win. I just thought that was a fun exercise. It's like, yeah, it's like trickier than you think it's going to be. Yeah. I know even when you're doing just like words in association with that, and you try to do it really fast is extremely difficult for human brains to do it. Yeah. Hmm. Nicely job. It's not easy being put on the spot like that. Yeah. Especially after winning at coin toss. Yeah. Well, now you guys can collaborate and work together because that brings us to video game. 20 questions. Our suggestion this week comes from Chris from Melbourne, Australia, who says, I've been listening to scoop since the beginning. Lots of great memories of being in high school, waiting for the bus and listening on my iPod video. I want you right to let you know that my wife and I just had our first child. We had so many girls names picked out, but when we found out he was a boy, we had nothing we could agree on until one day, I went for a run and did my usual routine of putting scoop on hearing Damon's classic intro. I was like, Oh, yeah, Damon, that's a great name. I came home from my run, told my wife the idea, and she agreed fast forward to August 50. Wow. And our own little Damon H arrived healthy and happy. Believe it. One thing I couldn't convince my wife to do was add the E in the spelling. So it's not spelled the same way, but it is another Damon H. Just want to let you know that there's another Damon down here in Melbourne, Australia named after you. Thanks for keeping me company with the only gaming podcast for half my life. I really appreciate all of you. That's crazy. Chris from Melbourne, Australia, but great story. And thanks for hanging out with us all these years. Total disbelief. That's just the sweetest, coolest thing. It is. It is very. Also, the iPod video thing, 100% the way I listen to the game scoop when I first was a fan. Yeah. Good times. Okay. He also has a suggestion, a 20 questions suggestion this week. He's a little, he has an anecdote about it, but I'm going to have to redact the whole thing. So let's just let the questioning begin. And Carp. And by the way, we, you know, you can always send us the Taco Bell ratings for 20 questions, which is of course, you know, as hot and Diablo and Verde, but we have a new one, which is mild ass. I don't know how I'm going to count on my fingers because I have to hold my damn art. Your piece here or the only way that I can hear Sam and Mark is if I hold this up just like this. Well, that's that's the true challenge. Okay. I'll just count on one here. All right. Well, I hope this is a mild ass one. Does this game make me want to live moss? That's not a real question. Um, hmm. Is this the, go ahead. Does the letter of this game start between a and m? The, I don't think we allow that question mark. Oh, come on. I already did all the alphabet answering we can do in these. Is this from this century? Yes. Okay. Okay. Do you think Mark Medina has played this game? Yes. Whoa. Yeah, it's stellar blade. Let's go. Is this game? Let's see. Let's see. Is this game exclusive to a platform? No. Did this come out on an intent of platform? Yes. Incom. Was that platform cartridge based? Yes. That's five. All right. So we're on switch, switch to, but it was on everything. Yes. 3DS, which would be weird. Yeah. Okay. Let's see here. Is this an indie game? Yes. Is this game part of a series? No. Would you describe? Well, is this game in the, um, uh, is this game a cozy or a rogue light? No. That eliminates all indie games. Yeah. Is this a platformer or action or puzzle game? Yes. Is it a platformer? Yes. That's 10. Okay. Sorry. Did we establish that it's an indie game? Yeah. Indie platformer. Indie platformer. That's a lot played. Or yeah. Braid or Philunky. Those are not part of a series as well. So let's see here. Um, is this game done for being difficult? Yes.
It might be so last or like super meat boy. I don't know much about slime. No, that's like part of a series. Yeah. Well, let's see, it's a platformer that, okay, difficult. So is the theme around the game retrying over and over? Like, do you die often? Yeah. Yes. Yes. Let's see. Do you play as a human? Uh, no, but that's confusing. Yeah, yeah, because he's a meat boy. Okay. Could it be a Castlevania like or something like that? Yeah. We need to figure out, like, is there a combat? I mean, being known for being difficult is interesting, right? Yeah. That's interesting. Shuffle night, maybe? Yeah. Shuffle night. That's a sequel. Hollow night. But like, a lot of these little series. Yeah. Hollow night. Yeah. I mean, I guess we don't know if it's a Metroidvania, but does, did we just count that? I mean, Metroidvania could be platformers. I don't know. Yeah. Is this a Metroidvania? No. Well, I'm pretty interested. Of course. It's not a Metroidvania. To be kind of a, yeah. Well, in Mark played it. So a linear indie game that Mark played. That's who was famously tooled for Metroidvanias. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Yeah. That's hard. Except for the new Castlevania game. It's just have retro style graphics? No. That's 15. Wow. Hmm. Hmm. Not a Metroidvania, but like, is there combat? Maybe there's no combat. I don't seem like. Yeah. There's not a lot of stuff I can think of that's like this. Not, especially without the retro graphics. Hmm. I mean, could it have polygonal graphics? We don't know if it's 2D. Could just be like ukulele or something, right? Oh, that's true. We didn't know. And could it go? Well, we should ask that because that's going to-- is this-- Oh. Yeah. Go ahead. Is this 2D? Yeah. Okay. So maybe Mario 64 likes? Yeah. A Hat and Time. Astro. That's a-- Yeah. Astro is part of a series. And Astro is exclusive. N-D3D platformers are unusual, but like-- Yeah. Ukulele? Ukulele is one of them. Ukulele? I mean, obviously, don't play as a human in that. Yeah. A Hat and Time. I feel like you clearly play as a human. Yeah. Or as Mario human? I don't know. I don't know. He goes to a human world and-- That's true. That's weird. They don't work like him. Yeah. Interesting. A challenging-- oh, maybe it's the one where you walk up the mountain like super weird. That devs reacted. Oh. Wait. The one that just came out? Baby steps? That would make sense. That's not. Switch, though. Oh, it's not. No. It's probably something like that. That would be great if it was baby steps, though, right? Let it. So, David, you said it-- it is difficult. What was the question again? We asked if it was difficult, and you said yes. Maybe it's Karen, also one of my favorite games this year. You got three questions and a guess. But Mark didn't play that, right? No. I-- I feel like-- look, we need to narrow it down a little bit more as far as the year. The year? Yeah, because we're still in-- we still have 26 years to go through, right? Yeah. You said this century? Did this come out in the last 10 years? Yes. Two questions and a guess. I think it's just a switch game. The human thing is weird. What was the answer to that question again, do you remember, Damon? You're not even-- Yes. But you're actually a little bit confusing. There's a reason why. So, think about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's usually, it means you're a robot or you're a vampire. Did you play any games, or was this designed in Japan? No. You're not a human, but it's confusing. One more question and a guess. What the heck does that mean? Not a lot of indie games coming up in Japan. No, that's true. Maybe it's something like Goat Simulator, but it's more funny than that. Yeah, that's part of a series. It's just weird. That's also what's stripping me up is, it seems like something we know, but it's such a one-off. What if it's just like big walk or like one of these new games? Yeah, it's a slop game. Yeah. Oh wait, big walk's not a slop game. But what are some other ones like that are kind of platform about multiplayer focused? Yeah, so there's, you know, dang, yeah, we didn't ask about that if it was multiplayer. You can ask. We have one more question. Well, is this game exclusively single player? No. Yikes. And now we're at our guess. Maybe it's it takes two. Or maybe a fall guys. Yeah, fall guys. That's good. It's one of those two, I bet. What do you think? Oh, what if it is? It takes two. Yeah, because it's hard because you are technically humans, but you're not. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And what else? He did the jail game and then he did the split fiction and the reason I'm eliminating those because it's more obvious that you're humans in those, right? Right. It might be a takes two. I don't know. It's switch existence or anything like that. I don't know anything about that. Any other. But it's about being a parent and this guy clearly has parenting on his mind because he's naming kids after game scoop members right and left. Yeah. Hopefully, I'm next. All right. Is this it takes two? No, it is not. No. Chris from Melbourne, Australia says, I find it interesting how this game was such a huge phenomenon during the pandemic, then Epic bought the developer and it seems to have disappeared completely. Still some fun memories. It is fall guys. It is fall guys. Wow. No. Got there. It was fall guys. So close. I was like, wait, you're describing fall guys. Your humans in a costume, is that what's going on in this game? No, but they're called, I mean, guys is in the title. That's all I've seen. But they're not. They're not human beings. Oh, man. Great game. This is good. Yeah. I thought this is a very. This was. This was. And it was. And this was a pandemic game. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. It's also a front prop, right? Yeah. It dropped on PlayStation Plus. So everyone could play it with their subscription. Yeah. We got so close. So this is on switch. It's on everything. Wow. Available today. It doesn't make sense. An epic bought it. I think bought the developer. And then, yeah, it just seems to have disappeared. Yeah. Interesting. And it's just. Yeah. I remember this and like Rocket League and Among Us. Those were like, yeah, those were really big back then. Yeah. Big pandemic games. And this is just difficult. Sam, it's just, the controls are difficult on purpose. So it's just hard to do anything in like the maybe steps thing, right? Yeah. Kind of like that. Yeah. Yeah. You'll get like bounce off things in a weird way. You'll fall and stuff like that. Other characters can make you fall. And it's called fall guys. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've played a lot of this game. I love this game. There's good times. One of those games where it's like the moment your friends move on, it's over. And that's, that's the issue, right? Is like you and your, your group of friends get all together the same with like Among Us, right? Like everybody gets together. They all play. And then all these updates and stuff come out. You know, it's really hard to pull people back and it'd be impossible for me to be like, hey, friends, you guys want to play fall guys in the big two six like I would, but I wouldn't get them so that I wouldn't play. Yeah. It's a good one though. Yeah. It's a good suggestion. Yeah. Seriously. You guys got very close. I mentioned the game right at the end. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for the suggestion. Chris from Melbourne, Australia and in the honor of letting me play some small part. and your family's life, viewers, listeners.
If you have your own suggestions for a video game, 20 questions, email them to me at the email address,
[email protected]. That's all the scoops that we have for you this week. Sam and I and Justin and Nick Lemone, we're all gonna be in a Germany for Gamescom next week. So we'll be recording a game scoop there and then we'll be sharing some of our adventures. So please be excited for that. Mark, you stay home. You have to stay home. - Okay, yeah. - I wanna go next year. I might try to go next year. - Yeah, would be great. - Well, seriously, pretty good time. So thank you. Never been. - Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Mark. Thank you to Joebert and everyone working behind the scenes to make this episode possible. My name is Damon. This is IGin Gamescoop and we're out. (upbeat music)
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